Navy Launches Uss Iwo Jima

U.S. & Latin America - U.S. News to Note

July 1, 2001

PENSACOLA -- The USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship named in honor of the sailors and Marines who fought in one of World War II's bloodiest battles, was commissioned Saturday at Pensacola Naval Air Station. Hundreds of veterans who survived the 1945 battle, which claimed some 6,800 American lives, watched in pouring rain as a crew of about 1,000 men and women in dress white uniforms boarded the ship.